Behind Thine Eyes
by S. Casasra
Summary: This is the secret that Lily Evans hid for twenty years of her life, the secret that was lost with her death. This is the secret that she hid from the rest of the world, until it came out through her only child.


**Title**: Behind Thine Eyes

**Author**: S. Casasra

**Email**: http/ M for Language, Violence, Adult Content

**Category**: Drama/Angst

**Summary**: This is the secret that Lily Evans hid for twenty years of her life, the secret that was lost with her death. This is the secret that she hid from the rest of the world, until it came out through her only childe.

**Spoilers**: PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP

**Disclaimers**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Notes**: This is a project that cropped up randomly while attempting to try writing a good crossover (for very few, if any, are decently written) and so I thought I would give it a try. I thank all my friends for inspiring me (especially when waving hot pokers in my face) and for attempting to beta this thing with their abysmal use of grammar. Don't ask me where I got the title from – I suppose it must be from Harry's final realizations of his mother's true character. The title itself reminds me of a trashy romance novel, but alas, it is not so.

This was supposed to be rather angst-filled mystery in which Harry finds out a deadly secret concealed by Lily Evans for twenty years in the beginning, but then, I decided to branch out on a whim and make a Creature!Harry. I just really hope it's not a generally cliché Creature!Harry fiction. I suppose Harry technically isn't a creature at all; he just happens to have an extra, mutated gene.

Oh, and if you haven't realised, the moon cycles are actually what happened on that particular day. It's just extreme luck (…or perhaps not.) that in 1996, July 30th was a full moon.

**Chapter Note**: This is the shortest chapter I've ever done in my life. Everything else has been over 5,000 words. Scary. This is supposed to be 10,000 words, but for some reason, my computer has erased the rest of this. Ah well. I'll rewrite it… Sometime.

**Behind Thine Eyes**

_Chapter One_

**February 14, 1980.  
Waning Gibbous Moon. **

_Dear, dearest James…_

The quill trembled and another blot of black ink ruined the parchment that held the same lettering as countless others. A tired hand clenched around the yellowing paper and crumpled it, throwing it into the flames of a quickly-rising fire, the heat tickling strands of dark red hair. Burning emerald eyes closed in frustration, the pink lips closing in desperation and anguish. Pale fingers selected yet another piece of yellowing parchment, and Lily Evans placed her quill in the dark ink yet again, weeping for the cursed child in her womb.

_Dear, dearest James…_

_I shall be dead when you are to read this, for I know I will not live much longer. _The quill paused, and a tear trickled down her cheek and dripped onto a cashmere jumper. _I have left this to you, so you may understand what is to become of us and our child. I have already entrusted another letter of the same kind to my dear sister Petunia, and though you may not like her, she is trustworthy. She will send the letter to Harry on the eve of his sixteenth birthday. _

Emerald eyes blurred in pain, and even as the child in her womb turned over, she knew the babe would not have a happy life. Dipping her quill in ink, she continued.

_I cannot tell you how I will die, for I know I shall, and my dearest wish is for you to live your life without me. You cannot understand why I am sending you this, not until you cast your eyes on our dearest Harry for his sixteenth birthday, and you mayhap never shall. All I can tell you is for you to love our son, love him for all his faults and never raise a hand against him. I hate myself for loving you because I know I have condemned you, no matter how I fight – _

Another tear joined its brother's track, a pearly flame illuminated by the dying embers in the fireplace. Yellowing parchment crinkled in the heat, and a shivering hand wiped away at the tear, streaking across the woman's face in incandescent claws. The stare of a dying woman burned into the parchment, the spidery words muddling before her eyes. _Goodbye, my love. And as much as I wished it would not have happened, it was inevitable. _

_Raise him well, my love. I can only look from the heavens. _

The quill dipped for a final note, and the woman signed her name. No _love_, no _sincerely_, no ending greeting in any form, just a plain name without any flourishes, scratchy and jerky from the trembling of her hands.

_Lily. _

She slid the parchment into an envelope, and wept.

.&.

**July 30, 1996.  
Full Moon.**

If Harry Potter even cared to look at his aunt's face this morning, he would have realised that, for the most unknown of reasons, she had a rather pensive expression on, as if really dreading something coming. Unfortunately, he had locked himself in his room to self-pity and study the consequences of his life. For Harry, having just lost the closest thing to a godfather to himself and finally having been revealed that crucial fact that had been kept from him for sixteen years – the result was one very irritated, mourning mass of teenage hormones.

Harry was a boy, unusual for his age and stature, with a thin and rather scrawny frame due to being locked in a cupboard for eleven years, knobbly knees, and said to have looked exactly like his father, James Potter. He was also a wizard, but this was normal – weren't there thousands of others like him across the world? But he was an unusual wizard, due to a rather ugly marring (or so he thought) across his forehead – a thin and sometimes bleeding lightning-shaped scar that resulted with an unfortunate incident (he dare not say accident; the prophecy in fifth year took care of that!) with the malevolent and egotistical dark lord Voldemort.

But Harry liked to think of his best features as his _eyes_, which was possibly the only thing that he could recall being inherited from his mother. Certainly no one ever mentioned anything else about Lily Potter, formerly Lily Evans, which Harry had inherited. He rather liked his eyes, in fact. They glistened with every emotion he felt even if the rest of his face was blank (rather unfortunate, but they made his eyes glimmer brilliantly), and they were slightly pointed, with unusually long eyelashes Harry felt belonged on a female. However, they were luminous and large and beautiful, and if Harry dare say it, _un-human_. Certainly they were not like any person's eyes he had seen before, those were lacklustre and rather dull; his eyes were wide and pointed at the tips and if he looked closely, his pupils seemed to shift slightly. When he looked in the mirror, did he imagine the tiny glimmer of gold around his pupils, and the emerald incandescence of his irises seemed to expand when he was angry. It was so tiny he didn't think anyone else had noticed it – except Dumbledore.

Dumbledore. His fists curled and then relaxed involuntarily. His thoughts turned completely away from his strange eyes as they turned toward the headmaster of Hogwarts. He knew the headmaster was not all to blame for the events that proceeded in the Department of Mysteries, but he couldn't help be angry. "Damn you, you should have told me the bloody prophecy all those–"

The faint knocking on door of Dudley's second bedroom interrupted his ranting, and he turned to see a very nervous Aunt Petunia standing slightly outside in the doorframe, clutching a thick yellow _something_ in her hands, and if Harry looked closer, he could see the fine trembling of her hands and her face and the wispy tips of the platinum blonde tresses. Now Harry was more observant as he let on to most people. He had seen the tension between Ron and Hermione fifth year (who wouldn't – a blind person could've seen it; it was that obvious) but he had also noticed the secret rendezvous of Neville during the night and Ginny Weasley during the day and he put two and two together. He had also noticed many other things that he rather wished he had not known, but that was for another story.

He stared at his aunt and she stared back for a few moments, and this was the way the day passed for a short passage, until with her wrinkly, pale hands handed Harry the stuffed envelope. She stared at him with unreadable eyes, and then a trace of understanding and sympathy shone through, and she whispered in a voice heavy with regret, "It was from your mother. She wished for you to have this on the eve of your sixteenth birthday." And she left without another word, closing the door behind her.


End file.
